concerned with. Perhaps they are working at top efficiency right now, and no amount of further subjection to the Confidet will change them.”

“All right then,” Cutter said quickly, “we'll ferret that kind of deadwood out, and replace them!”

“How will you know which are deadwood?” Bolen asked pleasantly.

“Individual checks, of course!”

Bolen shook his head, looking back at his tapering fingers. “It won't necessarily work. You see, the work that these men are concerned with is not particularly demanding work, is it? And that means you want to strike a balance between capability and demand. It's the unbalance of these things that creates trouble, and in your case, the demand outweighed the capability. Now, if you get a total ten-percent increase, then you're balanced. If you go over that, you'll break the balance all over again, except that you'll have, in certain cases, capability outweighing the demand of the work.”

“Good,” Cutter said. “Any man whose capability outweighs the work he's doing will simply keep increasing his efficiency.”

Bolen shook his head. “No. He'll react quite the other way. He'll lose interest, because the work will no longer be a challenge, and then the efficiency will drop.”

Cutter's jaw hardened. “All right then. I'll move that man up, and fill his place with someone else.”

Bolen looked at Cutter's eyes, examined them curiously. “Some men have a great deal of latent talent, Mr. Cutter. This talent released—”

Cutter frowned, studying Bolen carefully. Then he laughed suddenly. “You think I might not be able to handle it?”

“Well, let's say that you've got a stable of gentle, quiet mares, and you turn them suddenly into thoroughbreds. You have to make allowances for that, Mr. Cutter. The same stalls, the same railings, the same stable boys might not be able to do the job anymore.”

“Yes,” Cutter said, smiling without humor, “but the owner has nothing to do with stalls and railings and stable boys, only in the sense that they are subsidiary. The owner is the owner, and if he has to make a few subsidiary changes, all right. But nothing really affects the owner, no matter whether you've got gentle mares or [46]  thoroughbreds.”

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